Europe’s Roman Catholic bishops have set up an organization to defend the rights of Christians as well as monitoring prejudice and injustice across the continent. “Our first task will be to provide people
around Europe with objective and reliable data about the anti-Christian discrimination which is
taking place, as well as to alert Catholic bishops’ conferences and other religious institutions,” Thierry Bonaventura, media officer of the Council of Catholic Episcopates of Europe, told
ENI news.

“But we also want to encourage local church groups to be involved and take concrete steps against
intolerance, such as by presenting reports to the United Nations and the Council of Europe, and
encouraging them to take appropriate measures.”

Bonaventura was speaking after the announcement of the formation of the Observatory on Intolerance
and Discrimination, headed in Vienna by Bishop Andras Veres of Hungary, and Austrian lay director, Gudrun
Kugler, during a meeting of the bishops in Zagreb.

In an interview on 6 October, the bishops’ spokesperson said the decision to set up the body had been taken in 2009 by the CCEE, which is based at St Gallen in Switzerland and groups bishops’conferences from 33 countries and Monaco and Cyprus.“The cases we highlight will involve Christians throughout Europe, so the scope of the organization will be ecumenical,” the media
officer told ENI news. “For now, though, it’s a Catholic initiative, involving the CCEE and
Catholic groups.”

In a statement on 4 October, the CCEE said the observatory would work autonomously but also enjoy support from local church leaders, especially in collecting data on anti-Christian acts.

“The cases of Christians who suffer some form of discrimination have seen a rapid increase in recent years in Europe. Although this often happens in a hidden manner, the discrimination is all too real,” the
statement added.“The aim is to awaken public opinion to what is happening, so that such situations do
not become habitual and run the risk of degenerating into real hatred.”

At the same time, the CCEE’s Hungarian president, Cardinal Peter Erdo, said the observatory would
also assist evangelisation and “authentic democracy based on equality,” by promoting a society “more
respectful of religious freedom, and more capable of understanding and accepting its own roots and
reality through a healthy secularism.

"When the existence of God is denied at all costs, as some groups seek to do,” said Erdo, “the result is always the denial of the possibility of basing life and societal structures on a solid foundation, basing
them instead on the opinions of some or on the apparent momentary consensus of certain lawmakers.”

The cardinal noted, “Europe needs God. It needs to remember its own roots and thus look to the future
with realism and hope. The situation is often not easy for Christians, who seek to bear witness with their
lives to the faith and hope that is in them, through a lifestyle that becomes a challenge for others.”

Jonathan Luxmore, Warsaw (ENI)

POLAND

Poland’s Catholic schools
‘can bar homosexual teachers’

Poland’s Roman Catholic Church has defended the right of its schools to refuse employment to
homosexual teachers, after human rights groupscalled for the resignation of a government minister
who supports the policy.

“We must defend someone’s right to
declare their views and convictions publicly,” Archbishop Kazimierz Nycz of Warsaw told the Gazeta Wyborcza daily newspaper on 5 October. “Under both
State and church law, Catholic schools must clearly state the norms under which they take on teachers.
It’s a long time since I encountered such an attack on a State official because of something they said.”

The archbishop was reacting to criticism of Elzbieta Radziszewska, the government representative for equal treatment, after she confirmed that Catholic schools are entitled to dismiss gay or lesbian staff
members. She was also backed by Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz of Krakow, who praised her for standing
up for the rights of Catholics.

“Catholic schools must defend themselves. They are Catholic precisely because they want the moral values presented by the Catholic Church,” the cardinal told a radio interviewer. “They cannot
accept values they don’t identify with, so they can indeed refuse employment to a declared lesbian.”

In a mid-September interview with Poland’s Catholic Gosc Niedzielny weekly newspaper,
Radziszewska said church-owned schools and colleges could refuse jobs to declared homosexual staff
and sack those already employed.

However, the claim was criticised as a violation of anti-discrimination laws by Elzbieta Czyz, a director
of Poland’s Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, and rejected by the head of the country’s
Anti-Discrimination Rights Association, Krzysztof Smiszek. He said the minister’s “hurtful statements” were in conflict with European Union norms and risked creating “a climate allowing
homophobia”.

Grzegorz Schetyna, the speaker of Poland’s lower house of parliament, the Sejm, said he believed
Radziszewska, a member of Poland’s governing Civic Platform, had “gone beyond a certain limit,”
noting that her “indiscretion”risked “causing trouble for the political class and the State”.

Gay and lesbian groups have frequently complained of discrimination in Poland, where the predominant
Catholic Church opposed clauses in the 1997 constitution barring discrimination on
grounds of ‘’sexual orientation” and has rejected requests for a pastoral service for homosexuals. Although church leaders have condemned gay awareness events, homosexual groups say anti-gay violence has been met with silence in the country, which has been accused of tolerating homophobia by Amnesty International
and the European Parliament.

Warsaw (ENI)

USA

Divorce, Evangelical Style

Mark A. Smith, who teaches political science at the University of Washington,
pays close attention to what is now commonly called the “culture war” in America. Though the roots of
this cultural conflict reach back to the 1960s, the deep divide over social and moral issues became almost
impossible to deny during the late 1970s and ever since. It is now common wisdom to speak of “red”
states and “blue” states, and to expect familiar lines of division over questions such as abortion and homosexuality.
In the most general sense, the culture war refers to the struggle to determine laws and customs on a
host of moral and political issues that separate Americans into two opposing
camps, often presented as the religious right and the secular left. Though the truth is never so simple, the reality of
the culture war is almost impossible to deny.

And yet, as Professor Smith surveyed the front lines of the culture war, he
was surprised, not so much by the issues of hot debate and controversy,
but by an issue that was obvious for its absence – divorce.

“From the standpoint of simple logic, divorce fits cleanly within the
category of ‘family values’and hence hypothetically could represent a
driving force in the larger culture war,” he notes. “If ‘family values’ refers
to ethics and behavior that affect, well, families, then divorce obviously
should qualify. Indeed, divorce seems to carry a more direct connection to
the daily realities of families than do the bellwether culture war issues of
abortion and homosexuality.”

That logic is an indictment of evangelical failure and a monumental scandal of the evangelical
conscience. When faced with this indictment, many evangelicals quickly point to the
adoption of so-called “no fault” divorce laws in the 1970s. Yet, while those laws
have been devastating to families (and especially to children), Smith makes
a compelling case that evangelicals began their accommodation to divorce even before those laws took
effect. No fault divorce laws simply reflected an acknowledgment of what had already taken place. As
he explains, American evangelicals, along with other Christians, began to
shift opinion on divorce when divorce became more common and when it
hit close to home.

When the Christian right was organized in the 1970s and galvanized
in the 1980s, the issues of abortion and homosexuality were front and center.
Where was divorce? Smith documents the fact that groups such as the “pro-
traditional family” Moral Majority led by the late Jerry Falwell generally
failed even to mention divorce in their publications or platforms.

“During the 10 years of its existence, Falwell’s organization mobilized and
lobbied on many political issues, including abortion, pornography, gay
rights, school prayer, the Equal Rights Amendment, and sex education in
schools,” he recalls. Where is divorce – a tragedy that affects far more families
than the more “hot button” issues? “Divorce failed to achieve that exalted
status, ranking so low on the group’s agenda that books on the Moral
Majority do not even give the issue an entry in the index.” But the real scandal is far deeper
than missing listings in an index.

The real scandal is the fact that evangelical
Protestants divorce at rates at least as
high as the rest of the public. Needless to say, this creates a significant credibility
crisis when evangelicals then rise to speak in defense of marriage. As for
the question of divorce and public law, Smith traces a huge transition in the
law and in the larger cultural context. In times past, he explains, both divorce
and marriage were considered matters of intense public interest. But at some
point, the culture was transformed, and divorce was reclassified as a purely
private matter.

Tragically, the church largely followed the lead of its members and accepted what might be called the
“privatization” of divorce. Churches simply allowed a secular culture to
determine that divorce is no big deal, and that it is a purely private matter.
As Smith argues, the Bible is emphatic in condemning divorce. For this reason, you would expect to find
evangelical Christians demanding the inclusion of divorce on a list of central
concerns and aims. But this seldom happened. Evangelical Christians rightly
demanded laws that would defend the sanctity of human life. Not so for marriage. Smith explains
that the inclusion of divorce on the agenda of the Christian right would
have risked a massive alienation of members. In summary, evangelicals
allowed culture to trump Scripture.

An even greater tragedy is the collapse of church discipline within
congregations. A perceived “zone of privacy” is simply assumed by most
church members, and divorce is considered only a private concern.

Professor Smith is concerned with this question as a political scientist.
Why did American evangelicals surrender so quickly as divorce greater urgency. How did divorce, so clearly identified as
a grievous sin in the Bible, become so commonplace and accepted in our
midst?

The sanctity of human life is a
cause that demands our priority and sacrifice. The challenge represented
by the possibility (or probability) of legalized same-sex marriage demands
our attention and involvement, as well.

But divorce harms many more lives than will be touched by homosexual marriage. Children are left
without fathers, wives without husbands, and homes are forever broken. Fathers are
separated from their children, and marriage is irreparably undermined as
divorce becomes routine and accepted. Divorce is not the unpardonable
sin, but it is sin, and it is a sin that is condemned in no uncertain terms.

Evangelical Christians are gravely concerned about the family, and this is
good and necessary. But our credibility on the issue of marriage is significantly
discounted by our acceptance of divorce. To our shame, the culture war
is not the only place that an honest confrontation with the divorce culture
is missing.

Divorce is now the scandal of the evangelical conscience.

Mark A. Smith, “Religion, Divorce, and
the Missing Culture War in America,”
Political Science Quarterly

AUSTRALIA

Anglicans warned church is on its knees

The Anglican Church in Sydney is in diabolical trouble. Already
battered by the global financial crisis, the diocese is planning further savage
spending cuts. The archbishop, Peter Jensen, told the annual synod on
Monday: “The financial issues are grave.”

One of the biggest and richest dioceses in Australia, Sydney leveraged
its huge investment portfolio in the boom and sold when the market hit
rock bottom. After losing more than $100 million, it was forced to halve its
expenditure. “There was considerable pain,” the archbishop told the annual
gathering of clergy and laity in Sydney. But it wasn’t enough.

“In round terms, it seems possible
that the amount of money available ... to support diocesan works in the next few years is going to be reduced from the $7.5 million of 2010 to something
like $4 million. Our major rethink of last year was only the beginning.”

Back on the cards is the sale of Bishopscourt, the Gothic mansion on Darling Point where Anglican
archbishops have lived since 1910. Real estate agents believe it would
fetch more than $25 million. But that would only be a drop in the Anglican
bucket.

Two investment funds underwrite the diocese. Both are in trouble.
New management at the Glebe Administration Board, which funds the general work of the church in
Sydney, has identified “lazy and unproductive” assets and warned that
it will have to cut payments to protect the value of the endowment.

The Endowment of the See, which funds the government of the church,
has hit big problems with St Andrew’s House, the office block it owns behind
Sydney Town Hall. The archbishop told the synod that $20 million worth of renovations
begun before the financial crash and the decision of one tenant to quit the
building meant “the cash flow from the rental at St Andrew’s House would
most likely be reduced to nothing for the next several years”.

The big picture is that about $200 million in total assets will yield only
$4 million a year for at least the next three years. “We are,” the archbishop
said, “asset-rich but cash-poor.”

He blamed boards with an ethos “too trusting of one another and
not sufficiently acute in seeking accountability”; he spoke darkly
of “unconsidered and unhelpful relationships”; and warned against “the
real, fatal and ever-present danger” of allowing ministries to be taken over
by those who do not share the gospel outlook of the diocese. But he counselled against
recrimination. He even took a little
of the blame himself: “Looking back, I can now see many of the things I
should have done, things Ishould not have done and even clear moments when I should have spoken up or
insisted on different behaviour.”

This year he set up an archbishop’s commission to advise on resolving
cash flow problems and identify changes the diocese needed to make in
the way it was governed and the way it did business. Among the possibilities
are cutting the number of Sydney bishops and leaving the parishes to pay
for those who survive.

The archbishop has also “asked a parallel group of mature Christians to
pray for the work of the commission and at every point their work has been
bathed in the intercessory prayer of these saints”.

David Marr

USA

TEC DIOCESE OF QUINCY:
Last Episcopal Diocese
ordains female priest

Women have been ordained as priests in all 110 dioceses of the Episcopal Church, after the last
holdout, in Quincy, Illinois, ordained its first woman on Saturday, October 16, 2010.

The Reverend Margaret Lee, a grandmother of five and former chemist, is the first woman ordained
a priest in the Peoria-based Diocese of Quincy’s 133-year history, according
to Episcopal News Service. She had been a deacon since 1996.

A spokeswoman for the Episcopal
Church said all 110 dioceses in the 2.1 million-member church have now
ordained at least one female priest. The Episcopal Church voted to open the priesthood to women
in 1976.

Quincy, which has about 1,800 members in 24 parishes, was one of
three dioceses that had refused to ordain women, but its former bishop, a
staunch conservative, retired in 2008. The other dioceses — San Joaquin,
Calif., and Fort Worth, Texas — had also refused to ordain women, but conservatives in
those dioceses, and the bishops who led them, have seceded from the Episcopal Church in
the last three years.